


Promises to Keep

by crzy_wrtr10



Series: Special Investigations and Tactical Response Unit AU [4]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amazing art is amazing, Angst, Athos is grumpy, Author can't draw for shit, Brotherly Love, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everything Hurts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Kink Meme, M/M, Original Character(s), Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, SITRU AU, Some are, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, That aren't mine, all the feels, idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1563299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crzy_wrtr10/pseuds/crzy_wrtr10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Aramis, who couldn’t help but be listening in, nearly fell over in shock at Athos’s next words.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“I promise, on my honor as a Musketeer, that we will make sure you get safely to your Auntie Fleur’s. All four of you.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Athos doesn’t make promises he can’t keep,” Aramis added softly as Philippe still remained unconvinced. “Every promise he’s made to me he’s kept.”</i>
</p>
<p> <br/>Or: A bust goes bad and it's up to Athos, stuck in the middle of a wintery Canadian forest, to get four children and himself back to Quebec City despite the weather and the small matter of a gunshot wound to his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises to Keep

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Miles to Go Before I Sleep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528097) by [AgarthanGuide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgarthanGuide/pseuds/AgarthanGuide). 



> Hi. I just wrote an absurd amount of words in a day and a half. 
> 
> Hopefully this does that amazing piece of artwork by JakartaInn justice, because that picture is beautiful. 
> 
> This hasn't been beta'd, so any mistakes you see, feel free to point them out. A quick note on the OC's - the Merchant kids, Philippe, Thierry, Jeanette, and Jolie are not mine, but belong to JakartaInn and akathecentrimetre. I've borrowed them with permission, and hopefully done a decent job with them. 
> 
> This AU, like the show, has sucked me in completely. I'm strangely okay with that. 
> 
> This story was based on an art fill for this prompt over at the kink meme: The Musketeers are doing a thing that ends up unexpectedly corralling a bunch of poor civilians away from a dangerous situation. Somehow they get split up, as Aramis and Porthos end up running for reinforcements, or to warn the people away from the danger, or to divert the baddies- whatever. It's the middle of winter (or a very wet and stormy spring, or anything else that makes nature unpleasant), and Athos finds himself well outside of Paris with a pack of innocents that need protecting and nobody to do it but himself.
> 
> It takes about a minute for him to sacrifice his cloak and jacket to the most vulnerable members of the party, and he finds himself hamstrung at every moment by bad luck and the whims of nature. Maybe he's injured or something idk. Anyway, pretty soon he's the most vulnerable member of the party, but he can't stop to take care of himself because of the gravity of the situation. So it becomes a race against the clock for Athos' survival as he either waits for his friends, or tries to rescue himself and all the civilians.
> 
> Like I said, hopefully I do the pair of them justice. I'm not sure where JakartaInn's title came from, but I did find a poem by Robert Frost with the same line, and the title for this story came from that. 
> 
> Again, anything I need to fix, tweak, or overhaul just let me know.

_Whose woods these are I think I know._  
His house is in the village, though;  
He will not see me stopping here  
To watch his woods fill up with snow. 

_My little horse must think it queer_  
To stop without a farmhouse near  
Between the woods and frozen lake  
The darkest evening of the year. 

_He gives his harness bells a shake_  
To ask if there's some mistake.  
The only other sound's the sweep  
Of easy wind and downy flake. 

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep. 

-Robert Frost (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

“I didn’t want to leave Auntie Fleur’s!” Jeanette said loudly, accompanied this time by a foot stomp against the dingy kitchen linoleum. 

“Auntie’s wasn’t forever.” Philippe rested his chin on the backs of his hands as he stood on tiptoe to watch the numbers on the microwave count down. His mother had originally said she and Uncle Henri – though Philippe had the suspicion he _wasn’t_ their uncle – would be back shortly. 

That had been around lunchtime the previous day. 

Philippe had, with all the duty of the oldest of the lot of them at the ripe age of eleven, rifled through what cupboards he could reach without having to stand on the counter itself to find something to feed the four of them for the past day and a half. Cereal had been a clear winner until they had run out of milk, and while Jolie, the baby of the family at only three and a half, was content to eat dry Corn Puffs, Thierry was not. He’d complained loudly about it, and Jeanette, ever ready to be on the winning side in a battle between the brothers, had sided with him. 

“I don’t care!” She crossed her arms over her chest with a pout. “She wouldn’t have made us eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for more than one lunch.”

“Jolie eats peanut butter and jelly really well,” he said patiently, glad Thierry was still in the living room caught up in the worn chapter book he’d secreted among his clothes. Uncle Henri wasn’t too fond of books, but he definitely didn’t like noisy children. Mamen had a bruise around her eye from when Jeanette had accidentally knocked over a lamp while playing tag one of their first days there. 

Jeanette hunched her shoulders. “I don’t like it.”

“You liked it yesterday.” _And the day before that. And the day before, and all the times Auntie Fleur packed it in your lunch._ He didn’t say it, though. He wanted to, but he didn’t. 

Whatever she might have said was drowned out in the microwave beeping. Jolie tottered in from the living room, Thierry in her wake, and Philippe jumped a little to be able to reach the pouch of instant rice. 

They gathered around the tipsy wooden table. Jolie shared a seat with Jeanette and Philippe with Thierry. The plates were in a cupboard too high for him to reach from the chair, and silverware drawer was particularly disheartening. 

Philippe made the girls start, then insisted on Thierry having a spoonful before he did. They passed the pouch and the spoon. Jolie was oddly silent, her wide brown eyes either fixed on the table in front of her or focused on her dinner when it cycled back around. 

Shortly after, when the sun went down and the temperature dropped with it, Philippe tossed the empty pouch in the trash and herded his siblings into the living room. They had been forbidden to watch the TV, and there were no movies or games – other than the ones they came up with themselves, and played very quietly and very out of the way – and there weren’t many children books. To keep Jolie’s mind off the fact neither their mother nor anyone else living in the house had returned yet, Philippe borrowed Thierry’s chapter book and opened the first page. 

“But I’ve read that bit,” he said, sitting on the end of the couch opposite Philippe. His sisters were sandwiched between them; Jolie curled partially on her side, legs drawn up for warmth. Jeanette tossed the thin blanket resting on the back of the couch over the pair of them, and snuggled in as best she could. 

“Well, we haven’t,” Philippe said. “Just for a little bit?”

Thierry said nothing more. He did scoot his feet under the blanket to keep his toes warm, and Philippe began reading slowly and carefully to them. 

 

“You’re sure this is the place?” Aramis asked, squinting to see through the growing gloom beyond the windshield. 

“Positive. See – there’s Athos’s car.” Porthos parked next to Athos’s genuinely ignored mid-life crisis – though, to be fair, he had probably already had more than one – in the form of a small, black SUV-type vehicle. He’d told Porthos sports cars were too pretentious, and only Aramis’s heel hard on his instep had prevented him from saying something he might truly regret. 

“Athos’s car, but where’s Athos?” He exited into the frigid night air and tipped his head back to look for the moon. It was very nearly full; Porthos hadn’t needed to use his high beams on the way to the location. 

“Here.” Athos emerged from the shadow of his vehicle, shoulders drawn up to his ears. Or where his ears were hiding under the cover of a very fluffy fur-lined bomber hat. 

Aramis didn’t think Athos even _owned_ a hat like that, much less would actually wear one in public. 

It was Porthos, however, who pointed out the obvious. “Are you wearing your boatcloak?”

“It’s cold,” Athos said defensively. 

“And?” He glanced at Aramis, who shrugged. “It was cold last week and you weren’t bundled like we live in the Arctic Circle.”

He sniffled; Aramis’s shoulders tightened and he blurted, “You’re sick.”

“Am not.” Athos drew the blue fabric, eerily luminescent from the snow and moon, tighter around him. 

“Are too,” he shot back. 

Porthos resisted the urge to slap his palm off his forehead. It was like watching Danni and Aramis bicker about who loved who more. 

“I’m not, and we have a job to do.” He flipped the end of his knitted – an unexpected Christmas gift from Aramis during his second year as a full-on Musketeer – fingerless gloves over his cold digits and started down the road that would link up with the winding driveway to the house they were going to bust for counterfeiting and cocaine trafficking. 

“You should have switched with d’Artagnan,” Aramis said quietly, hands stuffed in his coat pockets as they trudged along the side of the road. It was lined with thick tress on their side, and he knew from the pictures of the house it, too, was surrounded by woods. 

Snow and woods, two things Aramis could happily hate until the end of his days without someone so much as batting an eye in his direction. With Athos next to him and Porthos following a little ways behind them, the ghosts that lingered at the edge of his peripheral vision in situations like this stayed out of sight and just a hairsbreadth out of mind.

“I am fine, Aramis,” Athos said, tone as frosty as their surroundings. 

“You’re wearing your boatcloak and you absolutely despise our dress uniform,” Porthos pointed out unhelpfully from behind them. 

“It’s the middle of fucking winter!” He gestured wildly to the cold around him, nearly hitting Aramis in the chest. Aramis threw his shoulders back to avoid the flailing limb, and before he could make a grab for it – to check Athos’s heart rate, and how feverish his skin might be – Athos tucked it back into the safety and warmth of his cloak. 

Aramis’s eyebrows crept up his forehead at the crack in Athos’s voice. “Athos?”

The other man refused to look in his direction, let alone answer him. 

“Humor me when we get back to the Garrison and let me just check you over, okay? A simple fever’s one thing, but half the unit has the flu.” Though there was the chance Athos couldn’t see him clearly, he widened his eyes and turned what Porthos called his _charming innocent give-me-everything-I’m-asking-for-because-who-can-honestly-resist_ look on his friend. “Please?”

It was a dirty trick and the three of them knew it. Athos had a hard time telling Aramis no in these particular situations, especially if he asked nicely and drew the word “please” out into multiple syllables. 

Funny, Danni did the same thing when she tried to wheedle an extra scoop of ice cream out of Athos. 

“Fine,” Athos said with a hard sigh. “ _When_ we get back to the Garrison.” Which, if he played his cards right, he’d just get his car and drive back to his own place after their mission was over, paperwork be damned. 

“Porthos won’t mind if I ride with you when we’re done here,” Aramis said smoothly. 

Athos resisted the urge to bang his already aching head repeatedly on the nearest tree trunk.

 

Jolie, Jeanette, and Thierry were nestled on the couch together and doing their best to share the blanket. Philippe, as he’d done the night before, resisted the urge to close his own eyes as he sat in the rather uncomfortable chair by the living room window with the chapter book still open across his knees. He wanted to wait up for his mother. She said she wasn’t going to be long, though she hadn’t said where she’d gone – again, with Uncle Henri and some of his friends – but she had specifically told him to take care of the others and that’s what he was going to do. He was the oldest. He would look after them. 

It was his job. His mother had told him so when Thierry had been born and he’d been charged with being a big brother. 

There was a rattle from somewhere in the house. Philippe’s chin lifted and he was suddenly wide awake. He glanced between the others on the couch and the doorway leading back toward the kitchen. 

Something rattled again. 

Curiosity got the better of him, and Philippe left the book in the chair to go investigate. His brother and sisters would be alright for the little bit it took him to make sure nothing was trying to get in the locked door – both Mamen and Uncle Henri had insisted as they left – and he let the hope it was someone familiar flood through him. 

It wasn’t Mamen. Nor was it Uncle Henri. It was a stranger, instead, big as a bear and twice as tough looking standing by the kitchen table and carefully inspecting the surrounding space. 

Realizing he’d gone too far out into the open, and with the need to protect the littler ones in the living room, Philippe edged back the way he’d come. 

“Anything?” the man asked, looking in a different direction. 

Philippe took another small step backward. His foot caught on someone’s shoe – Jolie’s, by the size and the way it tried to turn his ankle – and he staggered back into the wall with a thump. 

The man’s attention swung sharply to him at the same time someone called from the living room, “Athos! Porthos! Come here!”

He ducked out of the man’s reach with a squeal, stumbling slightly as he raced through the house to the living room. There was another man there, a slightly shorter one, crouched by the couch, fingers twitching toward the blanket. From his angle Philippe could see Thierry’s eyes were open in wide, silent fear. 

“Leave them alone!” Philippe yelled, rushing forward with the intent to save his siblings. All the lessons learned from getting caught fighting at recess fled, and he barreled onward. Jeanette leaned forward, almost over-balancing. 

Philippe never made it to the man. Something caught him around the middle, pinning his arms to his sides and bringing his momentum to a halt. He fought, kicking backward. Whoever had him grunted, and lifted him completely off the ground. Philippe froze, his heart hammering madly in his chest. 

“Athos,” the man still crouched by the couch said reproachfully, “be careful.”

“Would you rather I set him down so he can tackle you?” The sound rumbled in the chest behind him. 

“I’d prefer to not have to have a trip to the hospital at the end of this, how about that?” The man from the kitchen added, walking by and kneeling just behind the man already on the floor. 

“If I set you down will you behave? We’re not here to hurt you.” 

Philippe nodded; Athos, he thought the man’s name was, set him gently on his feet. He all but ran for the couch, climbing up and over the arm of it. Jolie had moved in the chaos and was resting between Thierry and Jeanette, so Philippe landed rather heavily on the cushion once he realized he wasn’t going to squash his baby sister. 

“We’re cops,” the man with the funny, sticky-uppy hair said, pulling a wallet from his back pocket. He opened it to reveal a shiny gold badge with an etched fleur-de-lis on it. Next to it, behind a thin layer of plastic, was a card with his picture and the letters SITRU. “My name is Aramis. This is Porthos, and that, over there, is Athos.”

“Do you have badges, too?” Thierry asked in a small voice, looking between Porthos and Athos. 

“Of course.” Porthos produced his with a small flourish and handed it to the boy for him to inspect. 

Athos brought his out, extending it toward Philippe as a sort of peace offering. He took it hesitantly, flipping it the right way around and ignoring the way his sister leaned on his shoulder to see better. 

“Yours is different,” the eldest girl said. “Why is yours a different color?”

“He’s a bit better at detective-ing than we are,” Aramis said with a smile that said butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “And he’s been doing it longer, too.”

There might have been a subtle dig about his age in there, too, though Athos chose to ignore it in favor of trying to breathe through his mouth without being noticed. The change from the cold of outside to the warmth of the house had made his nose clog, then run, and he didn’t need Aramis to start rummaging through someone’s medicine cabinet for something to make him take.

He was beginning to think he shouldn’t have bothered getting out of bed that morning. 

“Is there anybody here with you four?” Athos asked. 

“Athos.” Aramis shot a short-lived glare at the other man. His expression softened when he looked at the children. “We’ve told you our names, but we don’t know yours.”

“That’s easy,” Jeanette said, now holding Athos’s badge. “I’m Jeanette. This is Jolie, and my brothers are Philippe and Thierry. Now we’re friends,” she added seriously, as though to suggest anything else would have been criminal. 

Aramis ducked his head in an abbreviated version of a bow. “Well met, Miss Jeanette.” As Philippe, the boy on the end who was sporting an almost identical expression to Athos when he wasn’t if he could trust what was in front of him, looked to be the eldest, he directed his next question toward him. “Where are your parents?”

“They’re not here,” Philippe said tightly. 

“Do you know when they’ll be back?” Porthos asked, rescuing his badge from Thierry’s clenching fingers. 

Philippe shrugged. “Mamen and Uncle Henri didn’t say.”

“Where’s your Papa?” Athos took a few steps forward, though he didn’t crouch. His head wouldn’t appreciate the change in elevation. 

“We don’t have one anymore,” Jeanette said, holding tightly to Jolie’s hand. “We used to live with our Auntie Fleur.”

Athos made a staying motion with both hands when Aramis and Porthos looked at him, then gestured toward the kitchen. “I’ll call.” There were several calls he needed make, though first and foremost was to d’Artagnan would relay to Treville the situation at hand. Henri de la Perrot and Natalia Gavronne, their top two suspects, weren’t at the house. Neither, apparently, were their three accomplices. Instead there were four children in varying ages who had apparently been left for at least a day without adequate supervision, the oldest of which couldn’t have been more than, say, eleven. 

In the quiet of the kitchen, the voices in the living room reduced to a murmur, Athos dialed d’Artagnan’s number from memory. It was as ingrained in his mind as were the numbers for Aramis, Porthos, the Garrison, Treville’s home phone, and the multiple lines Constance manned both at work and at home. 

_”Athos?”_

“They’re not here.” Athos wasn’t in the mood to beat around the bush. Not when the pressure against the back of his eyeballs and the cough rattling in his chest demanded he do nothing more than lay down for the next week. 

_”Who’s not there?”_

What he had forgotten was that, for all of d’Artagnan’s intelligence, he could be _very_ dense on occasion. 

“de la Perrot and Gavronne. They’re not here. Look, I need you to call children’s services. Send them and a few police units out to our address. There’s some kids here that have been left on their own for at least a day, who knows how much longer.” He tamped down on the feeling in his lower belly, unsure whether it was simmering anger or his hastily eaten dinner threatening to make a reappearance. He was, however, hoping it was anger. 

_”Right. I’ll get on that. You want me to call Treville, too?”_

That was the problem with after-hours operations, wasn’t it? The captain himself had to go home sometimes – and there were times when Athos would literally help the man out of his office and into his car to make sure he didn’t sleep at his desk – and was probably reclining in his own living room at the moment. 

“Yes,” Athos said. “He needs to be kept up to date on the situation.” He glanced over his shoulder to see Aramis leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and his expression eerily similar to the time Porthos had bet him twenty dollars he couldn’t eat an entire pack of Sour Patch Kids in one mouthful. “I’ll call you when I know more.” He ended the call and slipped the phone back in his pocket. “What did you find out?”

“Philippe, Thierry, Jeanette, and Jolie Merchant, brought out here approximately a week ago by their mother from their Auntie Fleur’s in Quebec City.” Aramis tucked his clenched fists more securely in his armpits, lest he give in to the temptation to punch a wall. “Gavronne and de la Perrot have been gone since sometime yesterday morning, and none of them know when they’ll be back. Philippe’s adamant she was only going to be gone for a little while, though this doesn’t look like it’s the first time something like this has happened. Apparently they’ve been left alone like this before.”

He rubbed at his temples and asked, “Do we know who the mother is?”

“Yeah,” Aramis said softly. “Natalia Gavronne.”

“Fuck.”

He snorted; Athos was always so elegant when he received new he didn’t necessarily want to hear. Though Aramis couldn’t help but agree with him this time. “Yeah. My thoughts exactly.”

Athos scrubbed his hands over his face with a heavy sigh. “Right. d’Artagnan’s sending units and children’s services out to us. It’ll be about forty-five minutes before they get here, but we could probably make sure they have coats and shoes on first.” He took a few steps to his right to peer around Aramis to look in the living room. 

Porthos sat on the floor with his back against the front of the couch, Jolie perched on one side of his lap with Jeanette on the other, the boys nearly literally hanging over his shoulders as he told them some story or another. He had many of them, mostly from his time in the shadier portion of Quebec City known as the Court. It was eerily reminiscent of the true Court of Miracles in Paris, and more than a few of his foster parents had lived there. He’d picked up a lot there, ran with different crowds, and even when asked he wouldn’t admit how many of his skills were borderline illegal in certain provinces. 

“He’s used to it,” Aramis said dismissively. “Danni uses him like a climbing frame.”

“Better him than your bookcase.” He looked at the scene again before he added, “We need to tell the older one what’s going on or he’ll fight us every step of the way.”

Aramis smiled wryly. “Personal experience?”

“How do you think my parents ever got Thomas to go the dentist?” The ache in his chest intensified for a moment. “I’d have to go with them, even when it wasn’t my turn.”

The sound of giggles floated through the house, followed by Porthos’s booming laugh and an exaggerated character voice for his story. 

“You’re a good brother, Athos,” Aramis said softly, catching Athos’s eye as he did so. “You always have been.”

Athos swallowed with some difficulty past the tickle in his throat and looked away. 

Silence descended, broken only by the sounds of tires in the gravel driveway. 

 

“I told you I was done, Henri.” Natalia slammed the car door shut, heedless of the time of night and whether her children were probably inside sleeping. “I told you no more. Fleur threatened to turn us in when I came for the kids, and I told her I hadn’t started seeing you again. I’ve lied to my sister and I refuse to put them in the middle of this.”

Henri, a hulk of a man, held his hands out. “You told me this. Multiple times. We do this last job and then I’ll consider your debt paid, okay? No strings attached.”

She glared at him as they stepped into the range of the motion sensor light on the front porch. “This is it. Then I raise my kids in peace, you understand?”

He was about to say something when Petr whistled sharply. Henri turned to his right hand man. “What?”

“Listen,” Petr said. 

Even Natalia went quiet, ears straining for any sound out of the ordinary. Faintly, as though it came from the backside of the house, was the sound of voices too deep to belong to her children. 

“Company,” Henri growled, pulling a handgun from the back of his jeans. “Who did you tell where you were going?”

“I told Fleur I was leaving for a little while and taking the kids with me,” Natalia snapped. “I didn’t tell her where I was going.”

“You’re sure?” He backed her up against the side of the house between the door and the living room window, and slammed the gun by her head. “You’re absolutely sure you didn’t give her an address?”

“ _No._.” She shoved at his chest. “Get off me. Now.”

Henri retreated. Petr and his brother, Nikoli, joined them on the porch, guns drawn. Natalia looked between the three of them and spat, “Put those the fuck away, right now. My children are in there.”

“Yeah, and so are the cops,” Nikoli said, chambering a round. “Don’t know how that happened, do you?”

Natalia lost her hold on her temper, hauled back her arm, and punched him in the face like her daddy had taught her when she was small. Nikoli reeled; Henri threw open the door, and someone’s gun went off as all hell broke loose. 

 

Aramis hadn’t thought his skills as an uncle would ever come in handy outside of his dealings with his niece. As he stood in the dingy kitchen waiting for drug traffickers and counterfeiters to make their move and helped a child barely out of her terrible twos into a coat far too light for the season, he couldn’t help but think of Danielle. 

He adjusted the collar of the coat more snugly against her neck with a wide smile. “There, little one. Now you’ll stay nice and warm.”

Jolie said nothing, and continued to watch him with wide eyes. Still, he’d take dressing the children for a jaunt through the Canadian winter countryside over the conversation Athos was trying to have with Philippe. 

With Porthos keeping an eye on the door and Athos staying out of the easy sightlines of the kitchen door and windows, he was also free to convince Philippe they couldn’t stay. 

Philippe, with a pout that would have put d’Artagnan to shame were he there to see it, wasn’t having any of it. 

“I want to wait for Mamen,” he said, arms crossed stubbornly over his chest. 

“We can’t,” Athos said. He held the boy’s coat in one hand, though the first two times he’d offered it Phlippe hadn’t made a move to take it. “Our job is to keep you safe. We’re going to do our best to do that here, but we might have to move.”

The boy still wasn’t convinced. 

Athos knelt so they were more equally matched in height. “Philippe. I know what it’s like to have to look after your brother and sisters. I was an older brother, too.” He tilted his head toward where Thierry, Jeanette, and Jolie stood clustered around Aramis as he double checked they were all set to go, should they have to run from the house. “I know that feeling, the one where you want to keep them all safe. I know you don’t want to disappoint your mother, either. But my brothers and I,” he added, motioning toward Aramis and Porthos, “are going to keep _you_ safe.”

Philippe’s lower lip trembled. “Auntie Fleur’s.”

“Pardon?”

He shoved his feet into his sneakers. “Can you take us back to Auntie Fleur’s?”

Aramis, who couldn’t help but be listening in, nearly fell over in shock at Athos’s next words.

“I promise, on my honor as a Musketeer, that we will make sure you get safely to your Auntie Fleur’s. All four of you.”

“Athos doesn’t make promises he can’t keep,” Aramis added softly as Philippe still remained unconvinced. “Every promise he’s made to me he’s kept.”

Philippe took a shaky breath and looked at his three younger siblings. He straightened his shoulders, stood as tall as he could, and looked Athos in the eye as he said, “Okay.”

“Good lad,” Athos said, the corners of his mouth turned upward. 

The front door burst open with the sound of yelling; Athos threw an arm around Philippe’s shoulders and pressed him to the floor as the window above them blew inward in a shower of glass. 

 

It was chaos and pure, unmitigated terror. Jeanette screamed as Aramis upended the table and pulled her, Jolie, and Thierry to the relative safety behind it. Porthos returned fire from the doorway, and Athos shuffled Philippe over to the rest of children. He pulled his phone and dialed d’Artagnan’s number, yelling into as soon as the younger man answered, “We’ve got a situation! Send backup now!”

d’Artagnan’s answer of _”The first cars are about twenty minutes out from you!”_ was barely audible over the noise and Athos knew they didn’t _have_ twenty minutes. They were outnumbered, and while that normally wasn’t an issue – they had faced and triumphed over worse odds before – they didn’t usually have four children with them. 

And their safety was the number priority over anything else. 

“Athos! Athos de la Fere! _Olivier!_ ”

He jerked at the sound of his given name.

“Porthos has the front and I can cover the back enough to get you and them out of here,” Aramis said, as though he hadn’t spent the past few minutes trying to get Athos’s attention in the middle of a firefight.

“Get them to the cars and get them back to Quebec City,” Athos finished for him. “Right.”

“Those are my _children_ you motherfuckers!”

Philippe’s head jerked around sharply. “Maman!”

Natalia answered him with a screamed, “Philippe!”

Porthos continued to trade potshots with the idiots in the living room, Aramis looked pointedly toward the kitchen door. 

They had to get the children out. Aramis and Porthos could take care of themselves.

“Aramis,” Athos said. “Cover us.”

He’d have to take it in stages. He’d have to take the two girls first, and get them the fifty yards or so from the house to the tree line. Porthos still had their backs, using his ammunition smartly and taking only the best shots that presented themselves to him while making sure he himself didn’t get hit. 

“Jeanette, darling, put your arms around Athos’s neck and lock your legs around his chest,” Aramis said, assisting the child onto Athos’s back as he crouched. “Alright. Jolie.”

Athos lifted the little girl into his arms; she latched on like a limpet and buried her face in his neck. He and Aramis moved as one, the two boys following Aramis as closely as they dared as he stepped into the shadows of the back yard. Aramis pulled his Glock from the holster at the small of his back and wished he’d had the thought to bring his rifle if for nothing else than the night scope in Betsy’s case. 

“Go, Athos,” Aramis murmured. 

It would be alright until Athos was about halfway there and a stretch of unbroken moonlight lit the place up. Athos took off as fast as the added weight to his frame and the snow would allow, heart beating wildly at his ribcage with each step. They made it without incident, and he went to the second line of trees for a bit more coverage, making sure the girls were together and hidden. 

“Stay here, and stay quiet, alright? I’ll be right back with your brothers.” He had to physically untangle Jolie’s fingers from his boatcloak, and she immediately wrapped them around her sister’s coat sleeve instead. 

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, the night air feeling like a knife in his chest, he started back for the house at a jog. He hit the moonlight and picked up the pace. 

There was a gunshot, followed by two more in quick succession, one of which came from Aramis’s Glock. Athos felt like someone had punched him in the side with brass knuckles but didn’t dare slow down. He listed awkwardly, the snow going out from under his boots, and was half-expecting another shot to ring out. 

He returned to Aramis rocking Thierry from side to the side and murmuring, “Shhh, it’s over. It’s over little one, it’s over.”

“Boys. Let’s go.” Athos crouched, glad for the cover of darkness to hide the warmth that had to be seeping through his shirt at the side, and allowed Thierry to be positioned much like Jeanette had. Philippe would have to run beside him, though Aramis’s skill as a sniper ensured there wouldn’t be any other unwelcome surprise in their crossing. 

“Follow the woods, they lead back to the road.” Aramis gave him a shove as Porthos yelled something barely intelligible from inside. “Go. I’ve got this, you get them to the cars and get them to back to the city.”

Athos took off across the field again, Philippe in front of him with Thierry clinging to him like a monkey, and didn’t look back. 

 

It was silent as the grave in the snowy woods. 

For that thought and that thought alone Athos banished any idea of Aramis being the one to traipse through the snow with four children from his mind. It was hindsight anyway, as he was slogging through the snow with his left hand wrapped snugly around Thierry’s. His right was pressed against his opposite side. He still hadn’t taken the time to look at his own wound – mostly because he didn’t need to scare the hell out of the kids anymore than they already were, and partly because he didn’t need to know how up shit creek he was without a paddle – though it jarred with every step he took. The rattle in his chest was constant, and he knew, somewhere, Aramis was swearing a blue streak at the idea of Athos out in the elements with a cold. 

Not that it could be helped. Nor could it be helped that Jeanette had only stopped shivering after he’d given her his bomber hat and perched her out of the deep snow drifts on his shoulders. Thierry’s coat wouldn’t stay zipped, and Athos had wrapped the little boy in his boatcloak to keep him warm. Even Philippe, who was still sporting a rather dour expression though he hadn’t said anything since they’d left the house far behind them, had accepted Athos’s coat to fight the chill. It was also big enough on him for the boy to keep Jolie warmer, too, as he carried her. 

They probably made a very sorry sight, Athos most of all. 

“Mister Athos,” Jeanette said, “how long have you been a cop?”

“Almost eight years.” He paused, waiting for Thierry to catch up and didn’t miss the way Philippe came a little closer to hear better. Athos didn’t want to speak too loudly in case things had gone wrong at the house and they were being followed.

He also didn’t want to think that if that had happened then most likely Aramis and Porthos were dead. No, that was not a good line of reasoning to take, and he shoved the thought aside.

“Did you always want to be a cop?” Thierry, emboldened by Jeanette’s question, asked his own. 

“No, I didn’t.” Athos turned his head and coughed harshly into his shoulder. “I wanted to be a lawyer when I was growing up.” Like his father. Though the elder de la Fere had retired from the practice and moved back to a chateau in the French countryside after the death of his youngest son. 

There was a certain sort of irony there, that Thomas’s death had caused two separate lawyers to give up their practice without so much as a backward glance once there had been the surety of Anne going to prison for the foreseeable future. 

“Did you?” 

Athos glanced at Thierry and saw the same open curiosity on his face that he used to see on Thomas’s when they were about the same age. “I did. I was a lawyer for a little while.” _I convicted my wife of murder, and gave up everything to do with that former life._

“And now you’re a cop,” Jeanette said, fingers tangled briefly in Athos’s hair. Having his surrogate niece call him her pony had already desensitized his scalp. 

“I am. I’m a Musketeer,” he said proudly. There were days when it wavered, of course, but for the majority of it he was proud of the man he’d become. He was proud of his team, and proud he had a place of his own with Aramis, Porthos, and now d’Artagnan. 

“What’s a Musketeer?” Philippe asked, hefting Jolie higher up his torso. 

“A Special Investigations and Tactical Response Unit officer. Our nickname is the Musketeers.”

“Like we call the Mounties the Mounties!” Thierry beamed up at him. 

“Yes. Exactly like that.” He wanted to say they were much better than Mounties but he didn’t dare. The last thing he needed was for them to distrust any branch of law enforcement in case they ever have such a need again. 

Athos angled them toward a natural break in the trees. It had taken him, Porthos, and Aramis about as long as they had been walking to get from where they’d left their cars to the house, hadn’t it? They should be just…up…

They exited the woods into a field that practically glowed in the moonlight, surrounded on all sides by either more field or woods. And nowhere was there a road, or a set of parked cars in sight. 

 

“He should be here by now,” Aramis said as he paced in front of Athos’s SUV. “He left at least twenty minutes before the first squad car showed up, and it’s not that far of a walk. He should be here.”

“You were told to shut up and keep that on your face,” Porthos said with fond exasperation, pushing on Aramis’s wrist. The younger man scowled but returned the ice pack to the side of his mouth and jaw. How he could still talk with his lower lip split wide open and still sluggishly bleeding was a wonder. 

“It’s not like anybody listens to me or anything,” John, one of their usual paramedics said as he used the hastily erected floodlights to check the cut above Porthos’s ear. “S’not like I have any medical training or anything.”

“Aramis went through the EMT training course.” Porthos side-eyed John as best he could from the way his head was tilted. “He’s damn good at patching us up.”

The man in question beamed briefly, then spat out a mouthful of blood along with a curse. 

Porthos sighed, and muttered, “Idiot.”

Aramis casually flipped him the bird.

“Hey, boys.” d’Artagnan ducked under the caution tape and joined them. “Athos here yet?”

“No.” Porthos swatted at John’s hand; the paramedic backed off and snapped his glove against his wrist just to watch Porthos flinch. 

“He should be coming shortly then, right?” All that time cooped up at the Garrison as he whiled away the last week and a half of his medical restriction for a broken ankle had left him with energy to burn. 

“Should be.” The big man sat unashamedly on the front bumper of Athos’s car and watched for any sign of movement beyond the circle of lights. He wrapped an arm around Aramis’s shoulders and the slighter man settled next to him, and breathed another sigh of relief when d’Artagnan contained his fidgets and leaned on Porthos’s other side. 

The three of them settled in to wait. 

Treville pulled up when Athos was a good forty-five minutes overdue. d’Artagnan shoved his phone back in his pocket when his call went straight to Athos’s voicemail for the fourth time in a row. 

“Any news, gentlemen?” Treville asked, surveying both his men and keeping an eye on the officer coming back down the road from the house at almost a dead sprint. 

“Nope. Phone goes straight to voicemail.” Porthos carefully rubbed his forehead. 

“Captain Treville, sir,” the officer puffed as he ducked under the caution tape. “We found something by the house.”

“Spit it out, man!” Treville motioned for the three members of team one to stay seated for the moment. 

“Blood, sir,” the young man panted. “We found blood.”

 

He was lost. 

_Where’s Porthos when I need him?_ Athos thought as he slogged through knee-high snow drifts, Thierry’s hand wrapped around his belt on his right side. Philippe held his younger brother’s hand, Jeanette was still balanced on his shoulders – and using his head to steer him, though he kept his feet going in a fairly straight line – and Jolie had consented to be carried by someone other than her brother. She was a warm weight against his cold chest, and he knew if they didn’t find some sort of shelter soon he’d be less a human and more a popsicle. It was pure dumb luck he didn’t have the beginnings of frostbite yet.

Then again, he wasn’t feeling all that cold anymore, anyway. 

_That_ thought was about as terrifying as finding Aramis still and lifeless propped up against a tree some four and a half years ago. 

Athos knew was getting sicker and there wasn’t anything he could do about it right then. 

What did he finally cave in and do was pull out his phone and use the damn compass feature. It would have done him a whole lot more good if he could at least remember what direction the nearest civilization had been on the map they’d all looked at during the planning stages of the bust. Again, he wished for Porthos; the man never got lost. 

“Do you have brothers, Mister Athos?” Philippe asked. 

“I do,” he said. “I have three of them. Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan.” He’d had four of them, and the loss of the little brother he’d spent a happy childhood with sometimes threatened to swallow him whole. “They are my brothers though they aren’t related to me.”

“How?” Jeanette rested her cheek on the top of his head. 

“We don’t have the same parents, but they are like brothers to me.” Athos reached up and blindly tweaked her nose; she giggled softly. “They are to me what Thierry and Philippe are to you and Jolie.”

Jolie who was, still with her face nestled into the crook of his neck, now asleep. 

“You would protect them?” Philippe’s voice was small, barely audible to Athos despite the surrounding quiet. 

“I would,” Athos admitted. “I would protect them with my life if I had to. Much like I would for you four.”

Out of all of them, Philippe was the only one who might possibly grasp the enormity of such a statement, if only a little. It was that miniscule understanding that allowed him to ask, “Why?”

“Because,” he said. “That is how the Musketeers simply are.”

Philippe shuffled around behind him; Athos deliberately slowed his stride to wait for the boy to rejoin him at his side. Slowly, and with a touch of hesitation, Philippe reached up and wrapped his hand around Athos’s. 

 

His phone, dying as it was, happily informed him the approximate time he finally stumbled through the underbrush into someone’s yard. There were no lights on in the house – though, at one-something in the morning it wasn’t to be expected anyone would be up – but there was a car in the driveway. 

“Jolie, sweetheart, wake up,” he said, jostling the child in his arms. 

She blinked her eyes open sluggishly, and her skin was cool to the touch. Athos swayed at the thought of her having hypothermia, and looked at the boys’ faces as they peered up at him through the semi-dark. 

Exhausted. The lot of them, and Athos still didn’t know where they were or how long it was going to take them to get back to Quebec City and Auntie Fleur’s. There would, of course, be no doubt about him going to Auntie Fleur’s as he’d made a promise. With Aramis and the four children currently in his charge as his witnesses, he’d made a promise. 

And Athos _always_ kept his promises to those that mattered most. 

Jolie clutched at his pantleg when he set her on her own feet. He reached up and gently dislodged a sleeping Jeanette, rolling his shoulders to ease the kinks out of them. He was going to have plenty of sore muscles later. 

Unlike her sister, Jeanette woke with a snort and a flail. It reminded Athos of Aramis first thing in the morning, when he did quite have his bearings. Jeanette leaned into Thierry, and Athos’s first unencumbered step saw him listing into the side of the vehicle – a four door import – until he got his legs under him again. Thankfully, at that point, his side was numb. 

Again, probably not a good thing, but he had other, more important things to worry about. Like staying upright, getting the car open, and getting the five of them back to Quebec City. 

Eventually, maybe even a hospital. Or at least Aramis. 

The car wasn’t locked. Athos took a moment to raise his eyes skyward about the merits of country living and not being able to see your neighbors, and opened the door. He bent awkwardly at the waist, screaming obscenities in his head as he fought to get to the wires that Porthos had once-upon-a-time showed both him and Aramis would start the vehicle. 

A slightly scorched finger later and the car was purring like Dumas. 

His head swam dangerously when he straightened. It took long minutes to get the three youngest settled in the backseat and his boatcloak tucked securely around them all as best he could manage. Jeanette still wore his bomber hat, and Thierry’s hands swam in his gloves. Athos wasn’t surprised at all when Philippe took off Athos’s coat and handed it back so the Musketeer could add it as an impromptu blanket. 

“Seatbelts on? Yes?”

With the children in the car and the doors shut, Athos bent at the waist and tried to hack up a lung. He coughed hard enough to trigger his gag reflex, and swallowed back both bile and the urge to throw up. His head was throbbing, the left side of his button down was caked with blood, and everything was going a little fuzzy around the edges. He rested his forehead against the humming car and just breathed. 

There, from her cocoon in the middle of the backseat, was Jolie looking straight at him through the glass. For the first time since the whole fiasco had started earlier in the night, she smiled. 

_Auntie Fleur’s. Had to get to Auntie Fleur’s._

Athos pulled his phone from his back pocket before dropping gracelessly into the driver’s seat. Adjusting it so he could reach the pedals was hell, and he handed his phone to Philippe, who had taken up residence in the passenger seat. 

“Let me know when we have service, I’ll need you to call someone.” He had a lot of choices, too, though he didn’t quite know the pecking order he’d want. Treville or Aramis? d’Artagnan? Constance? 

Fuck, maybe he’d just let Philippe pick. Those were the only people in his contacts, anyway. 

He wiggled his tingly toes in his boots, cranked up the heat, and put the car in gear.

 

The warmth was making him sleepy. He was tempted to roll the window down a little bit to shock himself awake again but didn’t dare. Philippe had only recently uncurled from a tight ball, arms wrapped around his middle in an effort to warm up quicker. Athos adjusted the rear view mirror slightly to see more of the backseat – Thierry, Jeanette, and Jolie slept soundly covered in Musketeer blue. 

His own body, despite the heat of the car, was wracked with chills. He coughed frequently, and he wheezed like he was having an allergy attack. Thankfully there were no pomegranates anywhere to be found. 

The phone beeped. 

“You have five new voicemails,” Philippe told him helpfully. “From…d’Artagnan?”

Athos grunted, too focused on keeping the car on the road to formulate a proper answer. 

“Want me to call him?”

“No,” he said. “There’s no passcode, just swipe your finger.” He waited until Philippe had done that and said, “Call Captain.”

The phone, bless its little technological heart, began dialing Treville’s number. He picked up on the second ring. _”Where are you and is everyone safe?”_

“No idea and yeah, we’re good.” Athos squinted through the windshield at the road sign coming up. “We’re on – we’re on seventy-three.” And going the wrong way. “Hold on. Gotta turn around.”

His K-turn was a flashback to his teen years and getting his license. Still, it did the job, and the three in the back remained asleep and stationary. But God, was he tired. 

_”Athos?”_

That was Aramis. Treville must have had him on speaker in the conference room. 

“Aramis?”

_”Where are you hit?”_ Aramis must have known Athos was getting to the end of his endurance. 

“Left side. Dunno how bad.” Didn’t care, either. He had a job to do first. He’d made a promise and he was honor bound to keep it. 

_”Athos, you need to get to a hospital. All of you. You’ve been exposed to the elements for hours and hypothermia could be a real issue. You need medical attention.”_

“Can’t,” he said sharply, glancing at Philippe. “Made a promise.”

On the other end of the phone, someone sucked in a hard breath, and someone else swore. 

_”Athos…”_

It was Porthos – Porthos who sometimes understood the fucked up workings of Athos’s inner mind better than the man who possessed it himself – who came to his rescue. _”What do you need?”_

“Directions to our Auntie Fleur’s house,” Philippe said, phone cradled in both hands and a small, hopeful smile on his face. 

“Exactly.”

There was the sound of papers shuffling, and someone soon produced an address. Philippe repeated it to himself until he had hit memorized. 

_”We’ll see you there, alright? We’ll be waiting.”_ Treville’s tone left no room for argument. 

“Yessir.”

The connection, followed shortly by the phone, died. 

Athos shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and glanced in his rear view once again to see there were now flashing lights behind him. 

 

He’d been pulled over before for reasons he wasn’t proud of, and knew the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do was get out of the car unless he was asked. It made the officers nervous – who sometimes had itchy trigger fingers – but Athos was sick and tired of being out of control of the situation.

In general he was sick and tired, but that was a different story. 

Philippe watched with wide eyes as Athos climbed unsteadily to his feet. He shut the door behind him to muffle the sound, well aware he’d also left the car running. 

“Sir, put your hands behind your head,” the officer said, weapon trained on Athos’s chest. 

“I’m going to go for my badge, okay?” Athos kept one hand where the officer could see and eased the other to his back pocket, bypassing his own holster and gun. “My name is Athos de la Fere and I’m a member of the Special Investigations and Tactical Response Unit.” He brought his badge around and let it drop down to reveal his shield. “I’m one of Treville’s men.” His thighs trembled with the task of keeping him upright and he locked his knees. 

“Little far out of Quebec City, aren’t you?”

He shrugged, wincing at the burn in his side. All he wanted to do was get those kids where they needed to go and then he was going to sleep for a week and shoot anybody who disturbed him. 

“You okay? You don’t look too good.”

Athos’s flinched at the sound of the voice so close and turned his head in time not to break his nose as he was slammed into the side of the car. A handcuff snapped around his wrist.

His mind, muzzy as it was, went blank for a moment. Then all of Porthos’s hand-to-hand lessons, even the ones about fighting with some sort of incapacitation, came flooding back. The moves and counter moves were muscle memory, and Athos had had _enough_. Enough of the day, enough of people trying to make his life hell, enough of fucking winter, just _enough_.

This time, after the officer was in an unconscious heap close enough to his own vehicle to where he wouldn’t get accidentally run over, Athos coughed until he threw up. His chest ached, his side burned, and a new, warm wetness traced its way down to the waistband of his pants. The back bumper held him up, handcuff dangling from his wrist. 

Once he’d gotten himself under control again, he wiped his face on his shirt and staggered toward the driver’s side again. He supposed he ought to call it in but…what? 

He looked in the backseat, then at Philippe’s pale, worried face in the front. 

_Auntie Fleur’s. Treville._

Without another word and the handcuff his newest fashion accessory, Athos all but fell into the seat and they continued on their way to Quebec City. 

 

Fleur Gavronne wasn’t a nervous woman. The four men currently in her living room, however, made her very nervous. 

“They’ll be here,” their leader – Treville – said from where he leaned against the wall, watching her as she stared out the window into the night. “Athos is a good man.”

“And you trust him?” she asked. 

“I do,” one of the three sitting on her couch said. The lower portion of his face was purple with bruising and he kept playing with the gold crucifix and chain around his neck. “With my life.”

He said it so certainly, as though she was mad for believing anything else. 

“He’ll take good care of those kids,” the bigger man sitting next to him added. “Athos would rather die than let anything happen to them.”

She flinched. Such needless violence in the world, and she thought she could keep the four most precious things in her world from harm. She snorted. No, her sister had seen to it they couldn’t be kept out of it, and look where it had gotten her? 

On a slab in the morgue, a neat hole between her eyes. 

Fleur didn’t want nor need to know who had killed her sister. Treville had given her a tame version of the events at the house in the country, and what she had expected when Natalia had first started seeing Henri had simply come to fruition – she thought he’d be the death of her, and it turned out, in a way, he was. 

Outside it began to snow. 

 

Of fucking course, the story of his life at the moment was that anything that could potentially could go wrong would go wrong. This included but was not limited to going the wrong way down a one-way street, circling the wrong street multiple times, and now not being able to find a parking space. He finally found one big enough for him to park the technically stolen vehicle in though he couldn’t remember how to shut it off. 

Pawing at the wires while his aching head rested on the steering wheel seemed to work, and he took a moment to breathe. Not too deeply, in case it triggered another round of coughing, but he needed a breath. 

He also desperately needed a good glass of whiskey, but that probably wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. 

It was loading them into the car in reverse. 

Athos woke them all gently, and wrapped Philippe back up in his coat. He made sure the bomber hat was securely over Jeanette’s ears, and he ensured Thierry was snug in his boatcloak. Philippe carried a sleepy Jolie, much like he had for most of their jaunt through the woods, and Athos knew he couldn’t get Jeanette back on his shoulders without falling over, and had to settle for holding her hand, instead. 

The five of them formed a rather unsteady chain as they started down the sidewalk, Athos in the middle. There weren’t many lights on in the houses, Athos didn’t know where his phone was – probably still in the car – and he found himself counting house numbers with Philippe, who’s excitement, despite his exhaustion, was growing. 

Jeanette stumbled going up the steps; Athos swung her up into his arms with little thought before she could hurt herself. It was Thierry who opened the door for them; he brought up the rear, closing the house against the chill again. Jeanette squirmed and he set her down, watching with raised eyebrows as she tore off after her siblings toward what he assumed was the living room. 

There was general ruckus and mayhem; Athos clutched the doorway to stay on his feet, swaying precariously. 

 

“Auntie Fleur!”

Treville sidestepped a human missile in the form of a little boy with a smaller child in his arms. Fleur dropped to her knees and engulfed them both in a hug. The boy wore Athos’s coat, he noticed. Another little boy – a Musketeer blue boatcloak trailing along behind like a cape – barreled around the corner next. 

That was three, there were supposed to be four…

A little girl in a too-big bomber hat and looking more asleep than awake joined the pile on the floor. 

“Jesus, Athos,” d’Artagnan murmured from somewhere behind him. 

Treville looked toward the doorway and caught a glimpse of his officer. Athos was white as paper except for two spots of bright red high on his cheeks. The left side of his shirt and pants was dark with blood, and there was a handcuff dangling from his right wrist. 

He looked like he should, by all rights, be dead. 

“Sir,” he croaked, the world swirling together in a sickening mix of colors. 

“Athos.” The captain, Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan all moved as one, though none of them got there remotely in time as Athos’s knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor. 

 

There was a swaying motion. Rather than pull him deeper into the darkness it shoved him the opposite way, and forced tired eyes open. Bright lights assaulted him, and he thought he heard Treville’s voice through the rushing in his ears. 

Something painful jabbed him in the side and he choked on it, coughing. Had he accidentally eaten something with pomegranate again? Why was Treville there? 

What…Athos struggled to hold onto anything concrete and, when he failed, settled for slipping away with a small sigh.

 

“What’s he doing in there?” d’Artagnan asked, voice low in deference to the rules and regulations of the ICU. 

“Praying,” Porthos answered. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets as he watched Aramis thread the worn rosary beads carefully through his fingers, lips moving as he murmured too softly for them to hear. 

Aramis only broke out the rosary when he was truly afraid he’d lose someone and anyone who looked at Athos now would probably say he didn’t have far to go to get there. 

Full-on pneumonia in both lungs. A gaping hole in his side where the bullet had torn a chunk out of his hide. There had, thankfully, been little chance for infection but the cold ultimately hadn’t done him any favors. He was dehydrated. His fever was bordered on being high enough to cause brain damage. 

They’d given him a breathing tube in an effort to take the strain off his lungs. 

Athos was a fucking mess as he lay there, the light sheet pulled to his waist to preserve his modesty. Ice packs were tucked in his armpits and against his neck, and IV lines fed into each arm. A nurse came periodically to check the bag his catheter emptied into, logging what little urine output he was currently capable of.

And the doctors still weren’t sure he was actually going to stay this side of death. 

“Shit,” d’Artagnan muttered. 

“Yeah. That’s about the extent of it.” Porthos couldn’t sum it up any better himself. 

“Have you boys gone home at all?” said a familiar voice behind them. 

“Don’t wanna leave him,” Porthos said. He couldn’t bear the thought of not being there if Athos – if Athos….

“Don’t go there,” Araimis said hollowly from the doorway to Athos’s ICU cubicle. “Don’t go there, love, because I will punch you so hard you’ll beg me to kick you.”

Porthos snorted. “What did you do to him to make him say that to you?”

“Slept with the Commissioner’s wife.” He continued to rub his thumb over the rosary beads wrapped around his wrist. “Way back when, during my first few years.”

d’Artagnan’s mouth dropped open; Constance leaned over and tapped it smartly shut. The silence lasted until d’Artagnan found his voice to squeak out, “You slept with his _wife_?”

Aramis nodded. “I did. And Athos gave me hell about it.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t punch you in the face,” Porthos said. 

“Makes two of us.” He shrugged. “I did a lot of stupid shit when I was younger.”

It was d’Artagnan’s turn to snort as Constance crept into the room and sat delicately in the chair by Athos’s bedside. “Because you’re what? All of twenty-eight?”

“Twenty-nine this spring, thank you very much,” Aramis muttered, absently leaning into Porthos’s warmth as he watched Constance thread her fingers through Athos’s and begin to talk to him. He’d heard that some believed even those who were heavily medicated or in comas could still hear. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn’t.

He closed his eyes and prayed Athos would wake up and tell him.

 

He’d been eating sandpaper again. Which, quite honestly, didn’t make a bit of fucking sense because who in their right mind ate _sandpaper_? He sure as shit didn’t, though he couldn’t think of anything else that would give him that scratchy feeling in the back of his throat. 

Also, swallowing was difficult, though he honestly didn’t care considering he could actually still do it. Though if he could get rid of the elephant sat on his chest he’d be in business. 

At least his side didn’t hurt anymore.

“Athos?”

Well yes, that was his name. His middle name, to be precise, but he’d been going by that far longer than he’d ever been Olivier, and he didn’t see any reason to swap it now. 

“Athos, can you hear me?”

Of course he could. There was nothing wrong with his ears. His eyelids, on the other hand, didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

With what felt like supreme effort, Athos peeled open his eyes and did his best to find the voice – which sounded like Porthos, to be honest, though he couldn’t fathom _why_ Porthos would be in his room – and didn’t really get anywhere.

“Come on, Athos. Open your eyes.”

_They are open, you fidiot._

Athos blinked. Blinked again, and finally managed to convince his eyelids that up was almost as good a position to be in as down. And yes, there was Porthos standing over him and grinning like he’d just won the lottery. 

Another face swam into view, and Athos recognized the unruly hair first. Aramis. 

Which made sense. Usually where one was the other wasn’t far behind. 

Dear God, what the hell had he been doing where he felt like he’d been hit by a fucking truck?

“Hey, Athos.” Relief. Aramis was relieved. 

Athos squinted, though it hurt his head, and could see a piece of brown under the open neck of Aramis’s shirt. His rosary? But he only brought out his rosary when someone was going to die…

Oh. Wait. What?

“Go back to sleep,” Porthos said, twitching a piece of Athos’s damp hair off his forehead. “We’ll be here when you wake up again, okay?”

Again? Sure. Okay. 

His eyes darted once more between Aramis and Porthos before sliding shut.

 

Athos spent three long days and four equally long nights in ICU. He woke up a little stronger on the fourth day gagging around the breathing tube. He clung to consciousness long enough for them to remove the horrid thing, and then sank back into sleep, the last tendrils of fever still clinging to him. Once they were sure he was no longer going to stew in his own juices, the hospital moved him to a step down unit, and then a regular room. 

He still felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Every bone and joint hurt, and he thought he asked Aramis at one point if he’d been attacked by a crate full of pomegranates. Aramis, stifling a laugh, ensured him he hadn’t. 

The next few days passed in a bit of a blur. He slept a lot. When he was awake he always seemed to have some sort of visitor, be it one of his team members, Treville, or Constance. The rest of the SITRU sent him a card loaded with signatures, and Constance seemed to single-handedly keep the lobby florist in business by making sure he had fresh flowers every other day or so. 

Never, though, were there any forget-me-nots in the small bouquets.

He was dozing lightly one afternoon, the head of the bed mostly upright to ease his lungs, when he heard the sound of footsteps. He cracked an eye open and was startled into wakefulness at the sight of Jolie standing by his bedside, one arm wrapped around the neck of a teddy bear almost as big as she was. 

Athos pinched himself to make sure they didn’t still have him on the good drugs – no Percocet, though, Aramis had been _adamant_ on that – and discovered, no, she was real. 

She confirmed it when she tossed the bear on the blanket and climbed up to sit on his shin. 

“Hi, ‘Thos,” she said quietly, smiling wide. 

“Hello, Jolie.”

There was a scuffle in the hallway outside his door and a voice that sounded a lot like Thierry said something to the effect of, “In here!”

Next thing he knew Philippe stood at the foot of the bed while Jeanette and Thierry joined Jolie in pinning his lower limbs to the industrial mattress. 

“How is Auntie Fleur’s?” Athos asked. His voice was still rough. 

“Good,” Jeanette said. “She always has time to play with us and she helps the boys with their homework.” She leaned forward and whispered in what she must have thought was a secretive manner, “They hate homework.”

He stifled a snort. The corners of his mouth twitched as he whispered hoarsely, “I know some grown-ups who _still_ don’t like to do their homework.”

Namely, his team. Specifically d’Artagnan. 

Jeanette looked positively scandalized. “Really?”

Athos nodded, and caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A woman – Auntie Fleur, he assumed – lounged in the doorway, a soft expression on her face. 

“Mister Athos?”

He turned his attention to Philippe. 

“We have something for you, to thank you for what you did for us.” The boy stepped around to the side of the bed and handed Athos a square package wrapped in newspaper comics. 

“And so that you don’t forget us,” Jeanette said, leaning against Thierry. 

Athos unwrapped it carefully. He’d always been that child that liked to leave the wrapping paper in as much of a whole piece as possible whereas Thomas had preferred to literally rip his way through in no time. Athos also couldn’t open presents around Porthos as Porthos, being of the mindset as Thomas, would want to “help” him along with it. 

He tackled the last seam and found, nestled among the papers, what appeared to be a picture frame. It was one of those DIY plaster kind of things, the type he’d seen kits for in stores, and written across the top and along the side in Sharpie was the title: SITRU Team One. In the frame itself, captured in living color, was the four Merchant children. Philippe wore Athos’s coat, Thierry swam in his boatcloak, and Jeanette had his bomber hat perched jauntily on her head. In the middle, next to her sister, was Jolie, holding what he assumed was his badge – he’d lost total track of it that night, after the incident with the patrol cop, though most everything past that point was rather blurry, anyway – and grinning like she had the world in her hands. Across the bottom of the frame it read _Future Musketeers_. 

“Well,” Athos said, smiling, “I think you all will make wonderful Musketeers some day. You’re all very brave.”

The four of them beamed at him. 

He reached over and carefully nudged the mason jar holding Constance’s latest round of flowers more toward his hated spirometer, and set the picture carefully on the rolling tray that served as his table. 

“When we’re not feeling well, Auntie Fleur reads to us,” Thierry said, and the three of them made more room for Philippe to have a space on the bed.

“Would you like us to read to you, Mister Athos?” Jeanette looked beseechingly at him while Philippe blushed to the roots of his hair and produced the worn paperback they’d had at the house in the country. 

“I would like that very much, thank you.” He rested back against his pillows and let Philippe’s voice wash over him. 

 

Athos didn’t have a desk. When the picture frame made it from his hospital bedside to their floor at the Garrison, it made its way onto the wall outside Treville’s office, surrounded the various awards, accolades, and certifications the SITRU had received over the years. There wasn’t a more fitting place for it really, and Athos looked at it whenever he walked by on his way to the conference room with a new case for his team. 

And he couldn’t help but smile every single time.


End file.
